Stephen Harper

[Sponsorship Program, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to turn this over to the Prime Minister because this is the kind of answer the minister was giving yesterday, that he might not have paid for that.

The question is this. Was Cossette Communications one of his clients and did he lobby a minister on behalf of that client, yes or no? Did the Prime Minister know this when he was appointed to cabinet?

[Sponsorship Program, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, there are many people in the country who have an unfavourable opinion of Alfonso Gagliano. That said, he has made some specific allegations and I want to know whether the minister is actually refuting them.

We already know the minister lobbied the Bloc Québécois MPs on behalf of Cossette. Did he have a meeting as described by Mr. Gagliano? Did he meet on behalf of Cossette with the minister and was Cossette one of his clients?

[Sponsorship Program, April 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Transport an extremely serious question.

A former minister revealed that the Minister of Transport had done some lobbying without telling him that Mr. Cossette was one of his clients and without even being registered as a lobbyist. Is this true? If so, has the Minister of Transport submitted his resignation to the Prime Minister?

[Government Contracts, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question. When each group of Liberals calls the other group of Liberals a bunch of crooks and liars, does it really matter which one we believe?

[Government Contracts, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I fail to see how breaking the rules on ordinary contracting makes any difference that it was not sponsorship.

The Prime Minister said last week in the House, “I have never interfered in any contract”, yet Warren Kinsella testified under oath that the Prime Minister phoned him at home to push for a contract to Earnscliffe.

With the Prime Minister caught in the biggest scandal in history, in the web of his own deception, should he not be here to answer questions on the floor of the House?

[Government Contracts, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, there is not a person in Canada who does not understand that these announcements are about a government that has done nothing for 12 years and is now trying to run away from a rocky record of corruption.

Why does the government not just admit, as public servant Allan Cutler testified, that the Prime Minister abused the process to get contracts to his friends at Earnscliffe, to his campaign manager David Herle? Why does he not just admit that he got public money to his political associates?

[Government Contracts, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday's sworn testimony at the public accounts committee makes it clear that the Prime Minister funnelled tax dollars to Earnscliffe and his campaign manager David Herle. A top secret document dated 1995 says that at least $615,000 in improper contracts had already flowed. A memo outlines that the competition was flawed, the payment excessive, the work probably not needed.

As David Herle prepares yet another campaign of dirt and slander, should the taxpayers of Canada not know that it is money going from finance to Earnscliffe that gave birth to it all?

[Sponsorship Program, April 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister said here and also said under oath is that he did not know the Boulays very well, but his greetings written on Claude Boulay's 50th birthday are intimate. He tells Claude Boulay how good-looking his wife is. He jokes that he wishes Mr. Boulay would age as well. He kids Claude Boulay about his golf game.

Who writes a letter like that to someone he says he does not know?

[Sponsorship Program, April 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in 2001 the Prime Minister wrote a personal letter to Claude Boulay on his 50th birthday.

I quote, “Dear Claude, it gives me great pleasure to join all those with you tonight to celebrate your 50th birthday in grand style. Half a century! It was a particularly fine year, 1942! I am sorry I cannot be with you and Diane to share in this happy and unique event”.

Is this a letter to someone the Prime Minister does not know?

[Sponsorship Program, April 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last week in response to a question in this House, the Prime Minister told the member for Calgary Southeast “the entire history of my relationship” with Claude Boulay “was very short”. He said the same thing later to the media. Yet we know of a personal relationship between the Prime Minister and Claude Boulay extending over at least a 12 year period.

Why does the Prime Minister find it so necessary to misrepresent the length and nature of his relationship with Claude Boulay?